The best new movies on Netflix this month

Call us hard to please, but we're a little disappointed by the new titles available for what should be the hottest month of the year, romantically speaking. Valentine's Day will have its share of extracurricular pleasures and Fifty Shades of Grey (coming to theaters February 13) may be the biggest draw of them all. Still, we've got five recommendations for you—and consult our list of romantic movies for more options.

Our top five new movies on Netflix

Viewers who came of age in 1988 will thrill to the sheen of Gregg Araki’s latest, a pitch-perfect evocation of Gen X unease (featuring activities like making out to Depeche Mode songs). And younger audiences will see The Fault in Our Stars’ Shailene Woodley once again excelling in an emotionally tricky role: Kat, a 17-year-old blooming into her wild years while reckoning with an increasingly unhinged mother, Eve (Eva Green, crazy-eyed and just this side of Faye Dunaway).

The oil-fracking industry in North Dakota attracts swarms of job seekers from all over the country, not all of whom find gainful employment when they arrive. In Jesse Moss’s compelling documentary, small-town Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke sees an opportunity to enact the Christian teachings of charity, opening up his church and even his own home to these unloved visitors, as the film patiently records the ominous escalation of hostilities.

An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1964 novel—and not entirely different in tone and spirit to the author’s The Talented Mr. Ripley—this mystery whips us back to a sunny, simpler southern Europe of Yanks abroad and near-nostalgic plots that turn on passports, newsprint and unwelcome private detectives. The whole thing, shot in sandy creams and beiges, looks like it’s been carved from the same weathered stone as the ancient Greek ruins in the backdrop.

After seeing Elizabeth Olsen so miserable in Martha Marcy May Marlene—and Oscar Isaac barely surviving the winter in Inside Llewyn Davis—it’s nice to see the pair enjoy a bit of onscreen boots-knocking. Their characters are stuck in a dank version of 1860s Paris, a place of musty shops and asthmatic, annoying husbands. But whenever the two draw close, sunshine magically appears and everything heats up. Their illicit chemistry is completely believable, a hungry fire.

A subdued Nicolas Cage (what?!!) is terrific as the title character, an ex-con who runs a semi-illegal business poisoning trees for corner-cutting corporations. That said, he’s a good boss, always paying on time and employing anyone in need. So when troubled 15-year-old Gary (Tye Sheridan) crosses his path, there’s an instant fatherly connection—something the boy could use, considering his own dad (Gary Poulter, exceptionally scary) is a roaring-mean drunk.